hand will contain, which is our meaning when we use the word." Concerning the plural of a name and a title he stated simply (p. 67): "We usually say, 'the Miss Smiths'; 'the Misses Smith,' is more accurate." Finally, two other expressions to which Priestley objected are in unexceptionable use today. The first is the use of million limiting a substantive directly without an intervening of a million men. Priestley's statement (p. 74) is: "Some adjectives of number are more easily converted into substantives than others. Thus we more easily say a million of men, than a thousand of men. On the other hand, it will hardly be admitted to say a million men; whereas a thousand men is quite familiar." The second objection is to two genitives limiting the same substantive (p. 71): "It is by no means elegant to use two English genitives in construction with the same noun. He summoned an assembly of bishops and abbots, whom he acquainted with the pope's and the king's pleasure. (Hume Hist.) The pleasure of the pope and the king, would have been better." The first object of this paper has been to illustrate through Campbell the futility of attempting to direct or restrain usage, so far as individual turns of expression are concerned, by the application of purely rational principles. On the whole, Campbell's canons and his other statements of principle will, I believe, generally appear to be thoroughly reasonable; if propriety in language were determined solely by an appeal to reason, it would be difficult to pick flaws in many of his critical dicta on the subject. And yet, of the words and phrases Campbell condemned under his least exceptionable statements of principle, a goodly number-probably the greater number-are in general and unblemished use today. A further object has been to collect forms and turns of expression which were objected to by the foremost authorities on English a century and a half ago, but which, despite these animadversions, have since gained full admission or maintained their position; such a collection of material has, I think, both curious interest and historic value. Northwestern University. PITCH PATTERNS IN ENGLISH BY KEMP MALONE The Dutch scholar, van Ginneken, in his Principes de Linguistique Psychologique, defines accent thus: J'appelle "accent" la plus grande énergie psychique qu'un phonème possède plus que d'autres et qui se manifeste au dehors en faisant ressortir plus fortement une de ces cinq qualités, c'est à dire intensité, hauteur, quantité, timbre et articulation. One difficulty with this definition is that it overemphasizes the element of comparison in accentuation. Accent is certainly a relative matter, like many other things, and our feeling for it involves comparison, but this comparison need not be continually to the fore in our minds, as van Ginneken's definition implies. Thus, we may ejaculate an "Oh" in isolation, with more or less energy. When we do, we do not think of it as strong or weak in comparison with other "Ohs" that we, or somebody else, ejaculated upon other occasions. We think of it more simply, viz., as strong or weak. The comparative element is there, but it is implicit, not explicit, in our judgment. The same holds, though to a less degree, in a series of units differing in energy. Comparison is always present, but by no means always to the fore with us. For this and other reasons I prefer a somewhat different definition of accent, a definition which I have published in my Phonology of Modern Icelandic, Part I, page 6. It reads thus: The enunciation of any speech unit necessarily involves the expenditure of a certain minimum of energy. Such a minimum may therefore be looked upon as inherent in the unit. Any additional increment of energy would then constitute the accent of the unit. One great advantage of this definition is that it agrees with common sense and common usage. For van Ginneken would confine us to the peaks, the heights of speech, in our use of the term. But we use it habitually in a broader sense. We refer continually to speech units as spoken with strong accent, with weak accent, with no accent at all. In the last case we obviously mean that no energy has been expended beyond that minimum needed to enunciate the unit. When we speak of weak accent we do not necessarily mean that our unit stands out but slightly in comparison with its neighbors. We often mean, rather, that its neighbors (if it has any) stand out in comparison with it! Here at least, I think, common sense and science need not part company. There remains, it is true, a certain difficulty, viz., the difficulty of measuring accurately that minimum of energy inherent in the speech unit. Our troubles even here, however, are more theoretical than practical. In practice one may either disregard the distinction altogether, lumping minimum and increment under the head "accent," or one may treat as a minimum the smallest expenditure of energy actually recorded for the unit under investigation. Let me continue by quoting further from my Icelandic Phonology. Speech energy, I say, falls into two main subdivisions: energy of production (dynamic energy) and energy of maintenance (static energy). The latter is measured by its duration, and hence gives us durative accent or time accent. Dynamic accent is measured by the quantity of both its muscular and its vibratory effect (so far as the unit is "voiced "). Hence it gives us, on the one hand, dynamic accent proper or stress; on the other, tonic accent or pitch. As to tonic accent, van Ginneken has this to say: Quant au son musical, nous établissons évidemment une différence entre les notes aiguës et les notes basses. Les sons aigus ont plus d'énergie psychique et, in casu, l'accent musical. Here again I cannot agree with the Dutch scholar. As before he limits the term "accent" in a way not justified either by actual usage or by scientific analysis of the phenomena. In my view tonic accent, or the accent of pitch, manifests itself not in high notes alone, but in groups of tones high, mean, and low, groups to which I have given the name "pitch patterns." Without arguing the point, let me pass on at once to these patterns. Intonation, or pitch variation in speech, is probably the most important constituent in the sum total of speech peculiarities that give one an accent (as it is called). Yet, curiously enough, intonation has been little studied. About the only classification I have been able to find for English is the good old three-fold one of rising, falling, and level intonation-a classification so obvious that it hardly deserves the name. Not a few analyses of connected speech exist, it is true, and these in modern books appear in the form of intonation curves which represent graphically the rise and fall of the voice. But it seems to have occurred to no one to study such curves and determine from them whether any system of pitch patterns is in use. This task I have accordingly undertaken, and in the present paper I wish to present my results. I need hardly say that my conclusions do not exhaust the subject, based as they are on investigations necessarily limited in time and scope. I believe them to be valid as far as they go, however, and I hope this paper may at least serve to open for investigation a new and fruitful field. I have taken as a basis for this study a conversational passage printed by Mr. Daniel Jones on pp. 87-97 of his Pronunciation of English (London, 1914). Mr. Jones prints the passage in phonetic script, and indicates by intonation curves the rise and fall of the voice in his pronunciation. Mr. Jones's pronunciation seems to be representative of standard London English. My own pronunciation has a rather different basis, as will be sufficiently clear when I say that I was born and brought up in the state of Mississippi. Naturally, then, I found myself disagreeing with Mr. Jones not infrequently. I have tabulated these disagreements and so come to some conclusions (very incomplete, but accurate as far as they go) as to differences between Mr. Jones's pitch patterns and my own, in form and use. My investigations, in other words, have led to a two-fold result. On the one hand I have worked out certain pitch patterns in common use in English (a thing, be it emphasized, which Mr. Jones did not do). On the other hand, I have discovered certain differences in dialect between Mr. Jones and myself. The latter ought to be of special interest to the dialectologist, of course. The former ought to have some value not only for dialectology but also for English phonetics in general. The passage which forms the basis of the present study is an extract from Mr. E. F. Benson's Dodo. Mr. Jones uses it as an example of the rapid conversational style. I have divided the passage into numbered parts, each of which makes a pitch pattern. I print the text in italics, and add after each pattern a classification, as dip, run, etc. Where Mr. Jones and I differ, I indicate by J (Jones) and M (= Malone) the intonation to which the classification applies. The explanation of the terms which I use will be found below. Our passage follows: 1. At this moment prefix + dip 2. a shrill voice called Dodo from the drawing room prefix + down run 3. "Dodo, Dodo" double down run beginning with lift (J); double down run ending with lift (M) 4. it cried. up or even run (may be taken as tail of preceding phrase) "the man brought me two tepid poached eggs! prefix + dip + down 5. 9. 8. these remarks were speedily followed up double or triple dip by the appearance of Miss Staines at the dining room door. prefix + dip + down run (J); prefix + double dip ending in drop (M) in one hand up run ending in lift (J); prefix + dip beginning with drop and ending in lift (M) 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. she held the despised eggs long prefix + down run (J); up run ending in drop (M) in the other up run a quire of music paper prefix + down run behind her followed a footman prefix + dip + suffix with her breakfast tray prefix (or gradient prefix) + down run as to what was required of him prefix + down run "You know when I'm composing a symphony gradient prefix + 20. I want something more exciting than two poached eggs. prefix + multiple dip ending in drop and lift (my highest high is on exciting; J's, on want) 21. 22. Mr Broxton I know'll take my side. double dip + down run You couldn't eat poached eggs at a ball prefix + dip, ending in drop (J), in drop and lift (M). 23. could you? down run beginning with drop 24. they might do very well for a funeral march gradient prefix + double dip ending in drop (J); without drop (M) 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. or a nocturne up run ending in drop (J); part of preceding phrase (M) but they won't do for a symphony prefix + double dip; or, single dip followed by suffix especially for the scherzo prefix + double dip a brandy and soda and a grilled bone is what one really wants for the scherzo prefix + triple dip 66 only that would be quite out of the question." gradient prefix + Edith Staines talked in a loud determined voice dip + down run |